Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Matthew 1:1-25. The main subject of the sermon is the person and purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Matthew 1:1-25. The main subject of the sermon is the person and purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 1. I know that we have been working carefully through the incredible book of Revelation, and it seemed wise to me to take a break from that and have two weeks of looking at the gift that Jesus is the Incarnation. So I felt led by the Spirit to go to Matthew chapter 1 this morning, and God willing, we’ll look at Matthew chapter 2 next week. And for me, as I think about the Christmas season, I wanna caution this morning, as I begin this message, with the issue of asking the right questions, when I was a child, my heart was filled with all kinds of childish questions about Christmas. Some of them I will not repeat here at the pulpit, probably some of you know why. I don’t wanna be the one to bear the news to small children of some things that parents should tell their children. But I was under all kinds of misapprehensions about Christmas when I was growing up, and I would stay up late at night into the wee hours of the morning based on answering a question that I’m not going to ask, but there were other questions too, like as I got older. Am I going to get what I asked for for Christmas? It was very materialistic. And then as I got even older, I wanted to know if I would be able to sleep in. That’s when I knew I had moved out of childhood into at least my college years, just finishing final exams. My parents were asking the same question. I probably shouldn’t tell this family story, but there was a morning that my grandmother led an insurrection at six in the morning on December 25th. Saying it was time for the kids to get up and it was time to open the gifts, but my parents didn’t take it kindly.
I. Asking the Right Questions at Christmas Time
There are other questions that we ask as well, materialistic questions. Questions of finances, “Will I be able to pay my credit card bill in January?”, that’s a big issue. “What are we gonna have for Christmas dinner?”; “Who are we gonna invite over?”, and these are practical issues, but I wanna focus our attention on two questions, it just came up in the hymn that we just sang. “What child is this who laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping?” It’s the first question, first verse, second verse, “Why lies he in such mean estate where ox and lamb are feeding?” Or to put it a little more simple and less poetically. “Who is Jesus and why did he come to the earth?” Now, these are the questions that should dominate our minds, and our hearts, the identity of Jesus Christ and his purpose. These should be the two central issues of Christmas. Honestly, apart from these, I think Christmas has no significance at all. Just another secular holiday, in a secular year.
The apostle Matthew, as he opened up for us, the New Testament begins with this chapter, Matthew chapter 1, and he wrote 25 verses, the first chapter of his gospel to answer these questions, “Who is Jesus and why did he come?” And in order to answer these questions, he uses a genealogy in the first half of the chapter. And then a beautiful narrative about Joseph and Mary. And in the midst of that narrative, he uses an angelic message, an angelic visitation to give the theology behind him and specifically uses the names of this baby, Jesus, Christ, Emmanuel, to explain who he is and what he came to do.
II. The Kingly Ancestry of Jesus (vs. 1-17)
And the lesson is clear for us as Christians, this baby was God incarnate in a human body. He came to save his people from their sins. This is the clear lesson of Matthew chapter 1, but let’s walk through it. I did not have the scripture begin at Matthew 1:1, because the first 17 verses cover a genealogy. The kingly ancestry of Jesus Christ. Honestly, the first verse of the New Testament is a very abbreviated genealogy of Jesus. Look at verse 1, it says, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” That is a genealogy. Genealogies don’t always list every name but that very much gets to the point, but then follows a 42-name genealogy that traces out the kingly lineage of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. And it’s important for us as western readers, as American readers, to not skip the genealogy.
Many of us, I think, find genealogies boring, but I think this is an American perspective, I don’t know, perhaps other places in the world would find them boring as well, but honestly, in other countries, many people are fascinated with genealogies, they’re very interested in their ancestors, very interested in what they did, what they achieved. Some tribal religions even include ancestral worship as part of their religion. European aristocracy would be very interested in seals and titles and performance and honors that went on in the past, and perhaps any benefits it would bequeath to the present generation from knowing that you had such an exalted noble ancestor. The Japanese, where my wife and I ministered for a number of years ago, are proud of the ancestry of their emperor who can trace his lineage back to the year 660 AD through 125 successive generations. It is the longest continuous hereditary monarchy in the world.
America’s perhaps not so interested in genealogies because of the history maybe of our nation, of immigration practices a century or more ago. Perhaps as our ancestors came to Ellis Island or other ports of entry, and the official there couldn’t understand the name, couldn’t pronounce it properly or write it down improperly, there would be kind of a severing. Just getting on a boat and coming across the ocean, imply to kind of a severing with the Old World, some people are actually trying to flee their past and wanted an entirely new start, and we’re glad for an entirely new name, and were not trying to trace ancestry back.
But in any case, the Jews were very much interested in genealogies, perhaps too much, some of them are way too interested in genealogies, Paul has to address that in one place. But in another place in Romans, chapter 9, he talks about the benefits of being a Jew. The benefits of being among the people of Israel, and in Romans 9:5, he says, “Theirs are the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and from them, the Jews is traced the lineage or the human ancestry of Jesus Christ, who is God over all, forever praised.“
So the Jews had the benefit of giving to the world the Savior through the genealogy. And so the Jews were very careful keepers of genealogies. In 1 Chronicles 9:1, it says, “All Israel was listed in the genealogies recorded in the book of the kings of Israel.” And this practice dated back to creation, back to Genesis chapter 5:1, it says, “This is the written account of Adam’s line,” so back to Adam genealogies were kept. This is exactly how Jesus’ genealogy in Luke’s Gospel can be traced all the way back to Adam. At the time of Ezra, there was a careful consideration of genealogies. And priests would be excluded if they could not produce their genealogical records, proving that they were able to minister at the altar, but it was especially crucial for David’s descendants.
God had made a covenant with David in 2 Samuel:7. You remember at that time, David had wanted to build a house for God. It just, the Ark of the Covenant had been in the tabernacle, and he wanted to build a house. And instead, through Nathan the prophet, the Lord declared to David, he said, [2 Samuel 7:11-13] “The Lord declares to you that the Lord Himself will establish a house for you. When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you. Who will come from your own body and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” God maintained David’s lines through all kinds of challenges throughout Israel’s history, through some very rough times, for example, sin in the case of Jehoram. In 2 Chronicles 21:7, Jehoram, one of David’s descendants, was a terrible sinner, but it says in the account there 2 Chronicles 21:7, “Nevertheless, because of the Covenant the Lord had made with David, the Lord was not willing to destroy the house of David. He had promised to maintain a lamp for him and for his descendants forever.” So we could have shut David’s line down, but because of the promise he made to David, he would not do it. Also in the case of danger, in the time of Joash. Ahaziah, one of the descendants of David, was killed by Jehu, then Athaliah, Ahaziah’s mother, a wicked woman, decided she would kill the entire royal family, the entire living descendants of David. Shut down the kingly line. But one woman took little baby Joash and hid him in a bedroom with a nurse. That’s how close the Davidic line came to being snuffed out.
But the key concern was the coming of the Messiah, so look at verse 1 again, a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matthew is writing for a Jewish audience, and he seeks to establish, Jesus’ right to be king, the right to the kingship of Israel. It’s one of the three times in the entire gospel that Matthew uses the whole phrase Jesus Christ. And from the very beginning, Matthew is proclaiming Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of David. But he’s gonna go very much beyond this, for he was Incarnate God as well, and so the themes in the genealogy, I think are three main themes, God’s faithfulness first, God’s patience second, and God’s grace, third. God’s faithfulness first and foremost, to fulfill the promise he made to Abraham. A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Jesus was a descendant of Abraham; he was a Jew. As he said to the Samaritan woman, salvation is from the Jews.
This goes back to Genesis 12, where God called Abram, who was living at that time at Ur of the Chaldeans. And the Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household, and go to the land. I will show you, I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
That’s the promise to Abraham, that through Abraham’s descendants, all the peoples and nations and tribes and languages all over the world would be blessed through Abraham’s descendant. And so the apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:8, “The scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith.” That means give forgiveness of sins to Gentile peoples, non-Jews, by faith and announced the Gospel in advance to Abraham, saying, “All nations will be blessed through you.” The forgiveness of sins through Jesus, the Son of Abraham, and the promise to David. Psalm 132, “The Lord swore an oath to David, a sure oath that he would not revoke one of your own descendants, I will place on your throne, if your sons keep my covenant and the statutes I teach them, then their sons will sit on your throne forever and ever.”
Now, by the time of Joseph and Mary, the whole system of the Davidic kingship had fallen into disrepair. It would have been no great honor to be called a son of David in Joseph’s time, and that was exactly through the statement that God had made to David, “If your sons do not keep my law, then they will not be blessed.” And so the Gentiles came in and there was the exile to Babylon, and by the time they came back, they were under Gentile domination in Joseph’s time, it was under Roman domination. And so Joseph, in verse 20, as you look, he was called a son of David, Joseph was. It was important for Joseph to be a son of David, because he had to be in the legal kingly line in order for Jesus also to be in the legal kingly line. But Joseph for himself derived no great benefit from being a son of David, he was a simple carpenter, a tradesman, not in any wealth or power. And yet for all of that we see the faithfulness of God. God never forgot his promises to Abraham or to David.
“It was important for Joseph to be a son of David, because he had to be in the legal kingly line in order for Jesus also to be in the legal kingly line.”
We see also in the genealogy God’s patience. Look at verse 17. “Thus there were 14 generations and all from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile to Babylon, and 14 from the exile to the Christ.” Now, Matthew purposely omits certain names from old testament genealogies to get to his numerical perfection of two times seven – three times – two times seven; two times seven; two times seven, he’s got this sense of perfection and balance. But the real issue here is God’s patience. 42 generations are listed. Archeologists tell us that Abraham lived around 2000 BC. That’s 2000 years of God’s patience and faithfulness to Israel. At the right time when the time had fully come, it says in Galatians 4:4, “God sent his son, born of a woman,” after 2000 years of protection by God.
So if I can just stop and apply this to you, your life is unfolding as God wills, it’s difficult to understand the doctrine of Providence, to understand exactly God’s timetable for you, but never imagine that God doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing in your life. And that everything’s on a timetable, and the time when it fully comes everything that God intends for you will occur. God is faithful to keep his promises.
“It’s difficult to understand the doctrine of Providence, to understand exactly God’s timetable for you, but never imagine that God doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing in your life.”
We see also God’s grace in this genealogy. I was raised Roman Catholic myself. There is a strange dogma that came down, not from scripture, but from Catholic tradition, and from the ex-cathedra statement of the pope in the 19th century that the Virgin Mary was born by immaculate conception. Many Protestants misunderstand when they see the Church of the immaculate conception, they think it’s talking about the virgin birth of Jesus, but it’s not, it’s talking about Mary, that Mary was in some miraculous way protected from original sin by herself being immaculately conceived. The idea is that if Mary were a normal sinful woman then she could not give birth to the perfect sinless Savior of the world, that’s the mentality. But not so, God actually delights to show his grace.
Even in this genealogy, the genealogy is woven through with sinfulness, if you know any of these stories, you know exactly what I’m talking about. For example, sinful Jews like David himself, an adulterer and a murderer. In the case of Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite. And then Solomon was an idolater, fell into gross idolatry later in his life. Rehoboam was an arrogant boaster. Manasseh, perhaps the worst of them all, sacrificed his own son to an idol and practiced sorcery, and killed so many innocent people it’s said that he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood.
We see also his grace to gentiles. We’re gonna talk more about this next week in chapter 2, but it’s woven throughout the genealogy as well, and then interestingly to outcast women. If you look at verse 3, there is mentioned Tamar, and according to Genesis 38, after her husband died, she dressed up like a prostitute and had relations with her father-in-law Judah. And so Jesus is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah, but it came originally from that act of sexual sin. And then in verse 5, we have this woman Rahab mentioned, she was in the Book of Joshua, identified as a Canaanite prostitute. Who was saved by faith, by believing in the God of Israel, even before the walls of Jericho fell. She entered the nation of Israel, she married Salmon who gave birth to Boaz in the story of Ruth.
And then Ruth herself, in verse 5, was a godly woman, the very one who said to Naomi that she would not leave her. “Where you go, I will go and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Nothing will separate us but death,” and she was a godly woman, and her character is on display beautifully in the Book of Ruth, but she was a Moabitess. She was from an outcast race of people who traced their origination from the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughter in the cave outside Sodom and Gomorrah. The whole race was rejected by God. In Deuteronomy 23:3, it says, “No Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the 10th generation.” And then, of course, we have the case of Uriah’s wife, not mentioned by name here, Bathsheba, but Uriah is mentioned. And it was his wife that David took. And probably well definitely the worst part of David’s life. David’s partner in adultery, and after David murdered her husband, she became his wife, and they had Solomon together in Luke’s genealogy of Jesus.
Now, three of these four women were gentiles showing God’s-saving intention to the Gentile people. And then finally we see God’s mercy and grace to downtrodden nobodies after the exile of Babylon, we have a listing in verses 13-15 of ten straight men about whom we know literally nothing, absolutely nothing. They’re obscure.
So the genealogy shows three major things about God, his faithfulness to keep his promises, even after 2000 years of history, his patience in waiting for just the right moment to fulfill his promises and his grace, in using such sinful people to bring Christ into the world. Now, Joseph brought his contribution to Jesus in this, his kingly name. The legal right to be king over the Jewish people, Mary put her body to God’s services despite the scandal that would come, but Joseph put his name to God’s service thus bringing himself under suspicion of having fathered a child himself. He was willing to bear that, but it was crucial so that Jesus would legally bear the name of a descendant of David, a king of David.
“So the genealogy shows three major things about God, his faithfulness to keep his promises, even after 2000 years of history, his patience in waiting for just the right moment to fulfill his promises and his grace, in using such sinful people to bring Christ into the world. ”
Now, you may wonder why are there two genealogies? There’s one in Matthew and then there’s one also in Luke, Luke’s genealogy, for the section it covers is identical from Abraham to David, same names. But after that it follows David’s son, Nathan, not the kingly line. Matthew’s includes all the kings of Judah. But in Matthew’s lineage, we have a curse on Jehoiachim. This is in Jeremiah 22:24, 30, speaking of Jehoiachim, “Even if you were a signet ring on my right hand, I would pull you off.”, “This is what the Lord says, Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper and none will ever sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah.“
So the line in that way was cut by the curse on Jehoiachim, how could that curse be fulfilled and still have the kingly line coming down through that name? The answer is the virgin birth. Joseph was not the father of Jesus, and so the legal rights to rule came, but not the curse. And so God is very precise about these things. So fundamentally, these genealogies trace the human ancestry of Christ, and they establish him as a Jew who has the right to rule over the Jews and who is human. Fully human. And so for us, he can be our mediator, 1 Timothy 2:5- 6, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all men, the testimony given in its proper time.”
So we see the rest of the chapter then unfolds the answer to these questions in narrative form. We’ve already seen the genealogy answer the question, but now we’re gonna see the narrative. “What child is this, who laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping? And why lies he in such mean estate where ox and lamb are feeding?”
III. The Birth of Jesus Christ from Joseph’s View: (vs. 18-25)
Look at verse 18, “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.” Note the remarkable simplicity of this account. There’s no embellishment, it’s not over-stated it’s just very simple. She was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. That’s all it says. Now, we tend to zero in, and I think we’re interested in rightly, so on the human servants on Joseph and Mary, we have interest in them, that God used to bring Jesus into the world in Mary’s case and bring him up in the world, in Joseph and Mary’s case.
So who were they? Well, Mary was a godly submissive, obedient and faith-filled Jewish girl, a young, probably teenage girl and a virgin. Joseph was, it says, a righteous man, meaning he was obedient to the Mosaic Law, he was a manual laborer, some say, carpenter, could be a mason or some kind of builder, a man who is not even given a single direct spoken line. Now, I’ve said this for a few years, alright. But I was corrected this very morning as I listened to the Scripture being read, because Joseph called his name Jesus, so I guess then Joseph had one line in the Bible, and that was actually one word, “Jesus.” That’s pretty awesome. Other than that, he’s a man of not few words, but in the Bible, no words, he says literally nothing else. But he’s a godly man, and we see his quiet godliness and his manly protection of his wife and his wife’s son, the baby Jesus. And so he’s a very beautiful picture of what a husband and a father should be in his protective role. Probably he also was a teenager as well.
Now, Joseph had a significant problem right away. Joseph and Mary had been betrothed, and the wedding process came in those days in the Jewish culture, in two stages, there would be the betrothal, and then there would be the wedding, the wedding ceremony. The betrothal would be arranged by the families of the bride and groom involved the payment of a dowry, the contract was legally binding and a couple was seen to be legally married, but there would be a probationary period, probably about a year in which they did not come together as husband and wife. Notice in verse 19, that Joseph is called Mary’s husband, even though they had not come together. But the union was not consummated until a year later after the wedding ceremony, thus any immorality that would have occurred during that time would have been considered adultery, and the answer would have been divorce.
And so that’s the issue, they’re betrothed, but not yet married, they have not had their wedding ceremony yet. Before they came together, the text says she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. It’s clear that Joseph and Mary had never been sexually intimate. Mary got the news from the angel, from Luke’s gospel, Luke chapter 1:26-35. This is what the account says. “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be called great, and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.” “How will this be?” Mary asked the angel, “Since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.””
So in that angelic announcement to Mary, we have the clear fact that he is the son of David and also the son of God, and that’s the essence of the incarnation, fully human and fully divine. Now, Mary in due time told Joseph. And Joseph could not believe her, not initially, and we can well understand this, this is the only example of this in the entire history of the human race. Nothing like this had ever happened up to that point, and nothing like this has ever happened since then.
It’s completely unique. It was too much for Joseph to believe. And yet, it contradicted everything he knew about Mary’s character. It didn’t make any sense, and so he was deeply troubled by it. And so he pondered it and worked it through. And in verse 19, he came up with a solution, because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man who did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
So Joseph’s character is clear, it’s established he is a godly law-abiding Jew. The Mosaic covenant would have required death for sexual immorality. But at that point, Israel was relatively lax about aspects of the Mosaic Law. So in his day, there would have been two options, a public exposure and censure of Mary and divorce, or a private separation, which she would go off quietly and be able to raise her son in seclusion or in separation. Joseph was a righteous man, but also merciful one, he had a tender heart toward her and he loved her. He didn’t wanna see her exposed to disgrace, and so he had resolved in his mind to divorce her quietly. So he’s in agony working this through, and God and his timing allows him to come to this conclusion.
This is what he’s going to do. Look at verse 20-21, “But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife. Because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.””
Five times in these two chapters, Matthew 1 and 2, angels give messages to human beings in a dream. I don’t know how that happens, I don’t know even what that means, it causes me to scratch my head and ponder. Other people, “Sure, I can move on.”, I ponder I slow down and think, do angels have access to our brains? Do demons have access to our brains? And it seems like they do, they can insinuate thoughts, they can put things in our minds. But it doesn’t matter what I ruminate with, it’s clear that the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him what to do.
From the first, most important dream of them all in Matthew 1 and 2 is the angel telling Joseph the same thing that Gabriel had told Mary, in Luke chapter 1. The child within her had been conceived by the Holy Spirit, but he goes beyond this to say that Joseph… To tell Joseph why the baby will be born, why lies he in such mean estate. Why is he going to end up being born into humility and lowliness in the world? He will be born and will enter the world to save his people from their sins. And he’s told right away, “Fear not. Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife.” Why would fear come in? Well, there are two aspects of this, human judgment and God’s judgment. Concerning human judgment, he would come under suspicion of being the father of the child, as I mentioned, and especially if he treated her kindly and took her in, it would be almost an admission of guilt, people would just assume that the reason he’s being kind to her is that he’s responsible for her pregnancy, so he had to bear with that public censure.
Then there would be the issue of God and the Mosaic Law, and the fact that there is clearly it seems some sin had been committed. Well, the angel lifts the second right up off him, “God is at work in all of this, this is the very thing that God is doing. So do not be afraid Joseph to take Mary, she’s a godly woman, everything that’s going on here is coming from God through the Holy Spirit.” But he did not promise to protect Joseph from public ridicule or secret ridicule, or gossip or slander or a difficult life, not at all. This would turn his world upside down. He didn’t know what would happen, but he had to go down to Bethlehem to register for the census, and he didn’t know that soon after that he’d be fleeing for his life, running from Herod’s wicked troops. So this would change his world in so many ways.
Well, Joseph obeyed, in verse 24- 25, “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until after she gave birth to a son.” He did not know her. It says in the ESV meaning, have sexual relations with her. Although he had the right to do it, he refrained. So he’s willing to pay the price, secret shame and whispering. He was quietly submissive. He gave the baby the name Jesus, it wasn’t his child to name, he was under authority from heaven, and he was willing to forego marital rights with his lawful wife Mary until after Jesus was born. Now again, raised as a Catholic, I was taught the perpetual virginity of Mary, that she was always a virgin till the day of her death, but that’s just not true biblically. It’s implied here that he had no union with her, did not know her until a certain point, but even beyond that, in other accounts, we have a record of Jesus’ brothers and sisters.
I’m thinking the only way he’s getting brothers and sisters is by the normal way, they were not conceived by the Holy Ghost. And so Joseph and Mary had a normal married life, and they had other children and raised them up in the normal way. And so it is Joseph’s role to be a godly husband to his pregnant wife, and then when the child is born, a godly protector to Jesus.
IV. The Virgin Birth and the Meaning of the Names
So this brings us to the doctrine of the virgin birth. How essential is the virgin birth for our Christian faith? And I say it’s absolutely essential that we would understand and not reject the idea as though it’s somehow coming from mythology. We can trace it back to some strange pagan religions, and the idea of incarnations and maidens that are impregnated by Greek gods and all this kind of stuff, and people who do comparative religions do all this type of sullying, and they track it down to Christianity coming from myth. As a matter of fact, over 100 years ago, theological liberals were overtly attacking the concept of the virgin birth.
In the early part of the 20th century, Albert Schweitzer and Rudolf Bultmann began something called the quest for the historical Jesus. They set aside Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they wouldn’t look at those accounts as trustworthy, so they’re gonna find some other way. And they thought as modern scientific historians, they’d be able to trace down through history and be able to find the true Jesus, the historical Jesus. Bultmann specifically spoke of demythologizing, taking the myths away. The virgin birth was very much in his mind as though it were somehow a myth. In 1922, liberal Protestant preacher named Harry Emerson Fosdick, who wrote a hymn called “Guide me O thou great Jehovah”, preached a sermon entitled, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” In that he said, Christians can hold differing views on the virgin birth, some accepted as it’s written, others have a more broad-minded scientific view, and it’s okay within the Christian church to hold it. More recently, in June of 2002, Bishop Joseph Sprague and the United Methodist Church gave an address at a theological school in Denver, Colorado. He claimed that the myth of the virgin birth was not ever intended as a historical fact, but it was actually more of a literary device to help us understand the spiritual fervor of the early church. Friends, I tell you that the virgin birth is essential to the Christian faith. It’s essential because it’s taught plainly in the text, and it’s essential because it helps us understand, what child is this who laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping? That this is the incarnate Son of God.
“I tell you that the virgin birth is essential to the Christian faith. It’s essential because it’s taught plainly in the text, and it’s essential because it helps us understand, what child is this…? That this is the incarnate Son of God.”
John Piper gave us four reasons why it’s vital to believe in the virgin birth. First, it highlights the supernatural essence of Jesus’ person and mission, on one hand of Jesus’ life lies his supernatural conception and birth, and at the other end of his life lies his supernatural resurrection and ascension into Heaven to the right hand of God. And so He’s supernatural from beginning to end, he is God come to earth. Secondly, the virgin birth shows that humanity needs redeeming from the outside in, we couldn’t generate our own savior, we couldn’t save ourselves, and so God had to enter the world in order to save us.
Thirdly, the virgin birth shows God’s initiative in all of this, God has taken the initiative. Do you notice that the angel didn’t ask Mary if it would be okay? He told her what was going to happen. Now, I don’t in any way minimize that she said, “Behold the servant of the Lord,” and she was willing. But it was going to happen. The angel was telling her what God was going to do. He also knew that she would be willing. And finally, this virgin birth hints at the fully human and fully divine natures of Jesus united in the incarnation, an infinite mystery beyond anything we can ever finally understand.
None of this reasoning would mean anything if it weren’t taught in scripture, and so Matthew brings us back to a prophecy seven centuries before Jesus was born. It’s right there in the text. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means God with us. And so this brings us finally to the three names that identify Jesus, Christ is the name of prophecy, Jesus is the name of purpose, and Immanuel is the name of personal identity. Christ, the name of prophecy. For 2000 years, a prophecy had been made that the Son of Abraham would come to save the world. Jesus as the Christ, the promised one, fulfilled an earlier prophecy made in the Garden of Eden, that the seed of woman, the son of woman, would crush the serpent’s head.
And so for 2000 years, Jesus was long expected. As the hymn said, “Come thou long expected Jesus.” So Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ. The name Jesus is the name of purpose. Why was he born? Why did he enter the world? Look again at verse 21, “You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Well, the link between the word Jesus and the saving from sin isn’t so clear to us if we don’t know Hebrew. But Jesus name literally is Jehoshua or Joshua, and it means Yahweh saves or salvation is from Yahweh, or from Jehovah. Just like Jonah 2:9 says, “Salvation is from the Lord.” And so that’s what the name means, Jesus’ salvation is from the Lord. We couldn’t save ourselves. We had to have God save us and he will save us from sin. The Jewish people were waiting for a political military salvation to get the Roman boot off their neck. But the real yoke that burdened them, the real rod of their oppressor was their sins and the judgment that would come from God because of their sins. And so Jesus came to save us from our sins. It’s sin that destroys families through adultery and alcoholism and pornography and abuse. It’s sin that ruins friendships through arguments and unforgiveness and pride. It’s sin that oppresses our thoughts and hinders everything we do, slows us down in every effort we ever make to serve God. It is sin that causes people to be selfish to all the needs that surround us every day.
And so Jesus was sent into the world to save us from our sins. Do you know him? Do you know him as your personal Savior from your sins? You know what I’m saying is true, if you’re acquainted with the law of God. If you’re acquainted with your own life, you know that you are a sinner and that you have no hope of saving yourself, you cannot lift yourself up out of the muck of your own sin, you can’t scrape the defilement off of yourself, you can’t cleanse your heart, you can’t do anything about your past history, there’s nothing… What’s done is done. You can’t go back in time and undo that action… Un-say that word. It’s done. You need a Savior. Do you know him? Do you know Jesus as your personal savior? Have you trusted in him for the forgiveness of your sins? And finally, we have this name Immanuel, “They will call him Immanuel, which means God with us.”
This morning as I was preparing for this, I was thinking about the text in Philippians chapter 2[:6-8], where it says, “That Jesus, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped, but made himself nothing. Made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.” So why lies he in such mean estate? It’s gonna get even lower than that, it’s gonna get even lower than being wrapped up in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger, it’s gonna get as low as being our sin bearer, stripped and exposed and beaten and bloody and dead on the cross. That’s how low his estate will get, and he did that to stand in the way of the wrath of God and take his wrath into himself, so that we might have forgiveness of sins. And that’s what Immanuel is all about. God with us, not God against us. God with us to save us, not God against us to condemn us.
And as I was thinking about this, I was led to a Spurgeon’s sermon. Charles Spurgeon in 1854, Christmas Eve. He was 20 years old and preached his first Christmas sermon, and he preached it on Isaiah 7:14 on Immanuel. First time he ever preached a Christmas sermon, Park Street Chapel became metropolitan pulpit, and he preached on that text, “The virgin will be with child and you will call his name Immanuel, which means God with us.” So I adopted his approach and some of his language, but I kind of wrote my own version of Spurgeon’s sermon, I’m gonna close with that.
God with us, my soul ring with these words again. God with us, it is a bell struck first in heaven. Let us strike it again here on Earth. God with us, it is a single note from an eternal poem. God with us, tell it out, tell it out to everyone you know. God with us. That is his name, God with us, God by us, God alongside us, by his incarnation, for the infinite creator and ruler of the universe chose to walk upon this globe, he who made a million orbs, each more mighty and vast than this earth chose to become an inhabitant of this tiny atom. He who was from everlasting to everlasting, came to this world of time and stood upon a narrow neck of land between two unbounded seas.
God with us. He has not lost that name. Jesus had it on Earth and he has it still in heaven. He is right now, God with us. Believer, he is God with you. He is with you to protect you, you are not alone because the Savior is with you. Put me in the desert where no vegetation grows, I can still say “God with us.” Put me on the wild ocean and let my ship dance madly on the heaving waves. I will still say Immanuel, “God with us.” Put me upon the highest mountain on earth where the fierce, cold wind blows, and I see no life. I will still say, “God with us.” Even in the grave, sleeping there in corruption, I can see Jesus’ promise there, “God with us.” But to know that name fully, you must be instructed by the Holy Spirit, what’s the use in coming to church, if God is not there? Unless the Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ and applies them to our hearts, it is not God with us, it is God against us as a consuming fire. But it is God with us that I love. It is God with us that I serve, it is God with us that I yearn to see when I die.
Now ask yourselves, do you know what God with us means? Has it been God with you in your times of sorrow, in your times of pain, and trial and affliction and suffering? Has it been God with you when you open up the scriptures and search its words, has it been God with you when you kneel down in prayer? Has it been God with you in conviction of sin, when he leads you by his spirit to Sinai and you’re searched by the law of God and convicted of his sins, has it been God with you when he then leads you to the foot of the cross and you see there in that bloody sacrifice, everything you need for full forgiveness from God. Is it God with you then? Has it been God with you to come by faith with the eyes of faith to Jesus’ empty tomb and look at the stone removed, and look at the grave clothes empty, and see there your own future resurrection. Is it God with us then for you? Oh my God, teach us the full meaning, teach us the full meaning of this one word, Immanuel, God with us. Close with me in prayer.
Father, we thank you for the things that we’ve learned. We know that we will never be able to plumb the depths of God with us, of Immanuel. Thank you for what was said by the angel to Joseph concerning Jesus, that he would call him Jesus because he would save his people from their sins, and thank you for the scripture that you put in the heart of Matthew reaching back seven centuries to Isaiah’s prophecy, that the virgin will be with child and would give birth, and they would call him Immanuel, which means God with us. Help us, O Lord, to be filled with joy in this season, and help us to tell out from our souls the joy of knowing Christ our Savior, in his name, we pray. Amen.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Matthew 1:1-25. The main subject of the sermon is the person and purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 1. I know that we have been working carefully through the incredible book of Revelation, and it seemed wise to me to take a break from that and have two weeks of looking at the gift that Jesus is the Incarnation. So I felt led by the Spirit to go to Matthew chapter 1 this morning, and God willing, we’ll look at Matthew chapter 2 next week. And for me, as I think about the Christmas season, I wanna caution this morning, as I begin this message, with the issue of asking the right questions, when I was a child, my heart was filled with all kinds of childish questions about Christmas. Some of them I will not repeat here at the pulpit, probably some of you know why. I don’t wanna be the one to bear the news to small children of some things that parents should tell their children. But I was under all kinds of misapprehensions about Christmas when I was growing up, and I would stay up late at night into the wee hours of the morning based on answering a question that I’m not going to ask, but there were other questions too, like as I got older. Am I going to get what I asked for for Christmas? It was very materialistic. And then as I got even older, I wanted to know if I would be able to sleep in. That’s when I knew I had moved out of childhood into at least my college years, just finishing final exams. My parents were asking the same question. I probably shouldn’t tell this family story, but there was a morning that my grandmother led an insurrection at six in the morning on December 25th. Saying it was time for the kids to get up and it was time to open the gifts, but my parents didn’t take it kindly.
I. Asking the Right Questions at Christmas Time
There are other questions that we ask as well, materialistic questions. Questions of finances, “Will I be able to pay my credit card bill in January?”, that’s a big issue. “What are we gonna have for Christmas dinner?”; “Who are we gonna invite over?”, and these are practical issues, but I wanna focus our attention on two questions, it just came up in the hymn that we just sang. “What child is this who laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping?” It’s the first question, first verse, second verse, “Why lies he in such mean estate where ox and lamb are feeding?” Or to put it a little more simple and less poetically. “Who is Jesus and why did he come to the earth?” Now, these are the questions that should dominate our minds, and our hearts, the identity of Jesus Christ and his purpose. These should be the two central issues of Christmas. Honestly, apart from these, I think Christmas has no significance at all. Just another secular holiday, in a secular year.
The apostle Matthew, as he opened up for us, the New Testament begins with this chapter, Matthew chapter 1, and he wrote 25 verses, the first chapter of his gospel to answer these questions, “Who is Jesus and why did he come?” And in order to answer these questions, he uses a genealogy in the first half of the chapter. And then a beautiful narrative about Joseph and Mary. And in the midst of that narrative, he uses an angelic message, an angelic visitation to give the theology behind him and specifically uses the names of this baby, Jesus, Christ, Emmanuel, to explain who he is and what he came to do.
II. The Kingly Ancestry of Jesus (vs. 1-17)
And the lesson is clear for us as Christians, this baby was God incarnate in a human body. He came to save his people from their sins. This is the clear lesson of Matthew chapter 1, but let’s walk through it. I did not have the scripture begin at Matthew 1:1, because the first 17 verses cover a genealogy. The kingly ancestry of Jesus Christ. Honestly, the first verse of the New Testament is a very abbreviated genealogy of Jesus. Look at verse 1, it says, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” That is a genealogy. Genealogies don’t always list every name but that very much gets to the point, but then follows a 42-name genealogy that traces out the kingly lineage of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. And it’s important for us as western readers, as American readers, to not skip the genealogy.
Many of us, I think, find genealogies boring, but I think this is an American perspective, I don’t know, perhaps other places in the world would find them boring as well, but honestly, in other countries, many people are fascinated with genealogies, they’re very interested in their ancestors, very interested in what they did, what they achieved. Some tribal religions even include ancestral worship as part of their religion. European aristocracy would be very interested in seals and titles and performance and honors that went on in the past, and perhaps any benefits it would bequeath to the present generation from knowing that you had such an exalted noble ancestor. The Japanese, where my wife and I ministered for a number of years ago, are proud of the ancestry of their emperor who can trace his lineage back to the year 660 AD through 125 successive generations. It is the longest continuous hereditary monarchy in the world.
America’s perhaps not so interested in genealogies because of the history maybe of our nation, of immigration practices a century or more ago. Perhaps as our ancestors came to Ellis Island or other ports of entry, and the official there couldn’t understand the name, couldn’t pronounce it properly or write it down improperly, there would be kind of a severing. Just getting on a boat and coming across the ocean, imply to kind of a severing with the Old World, some people are actually trying to flee their past and wanted an entirely new start, and we’re glad for an entirely new name, and were not trying to trace ancestry back.
But in any case, the Jews were very much interested in genealogies, perhaps too much, some of them are way too interested in genealogies, Paul has to address that in one place. But in another place in Romans, chapter 9, he talks about the benefits of being a Jew. The benefits of being among the people of Israel, and in Romans 9:5, he says, “Theirs are the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and from them, the Jews is traced the lineage or the human ancestry of Jesus Christ, who is God over all, forever praised.“
So the Jews had the benefit of giving to the world the Savior through the genealogy. And so the Jews were very careful keepers of genealogies. In 1 Chronicles 9:1, it says, “All Israel was listed in the genealogies recorded in the book of the kings of Israel.” And this practice dated back to creation, back to Genesis chapter 5:1, it says, “This is the written account of Adam’s line,” so back to Adam genealogies were kept. This is exactly how Jesus’ genealogy in Luke’s Gospel can be traced all the way back to Adam. At the time of Ezra, there was a careful consideration of genealogies. And priests would be excluded if they could not produce their genealogical records, proving that they were able to minister at the altar, but it was especially crucial for David’s descendants.
God had made a covenant with David in 2 Samuel:7. You remember at that time, David had wanted to build a house for God. It just, the Ark of the Covenant had been in the tabernacle, and he wanted to build a house. And instead, through Nathan the prophet, the Lord declared to David, he said, [2 Samuel 7:11-13] “The Lord declares to you that the Lord Himself will establish a house for you. When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you. Who will come from your own body and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” God maintained David’s lines through all kinds of challenges throughout Israel’s history, through some very rough times, for example, sin in the case of Jehoram. In 2 Chronicles 21:7, Jehoram, one of David’s descendants, was a terrible sinner, but it says in the account there 2 Chronicles 21:7, “Nevertheless, because of the Covenant the Lord had made with David, the Lord was not willing to destroy the house of David. He had promised to maintain a lamp for him and for his descendants forever.” So we could have shut David’s line down, but because of the promise he made to David, he would not do it. Also in the case of danger, in the time of Joash. Ahaziah, one of the descendants of David, was killed by Jehu, then Athaliah, Ahaziah’s mother, a wicked woman, decided she would kill the entire royal family, the entire living descendants of David. Shut down the kingly line. But one woman took little baby Joash and hid him in a bedroom with a nurse. That’s how close the Davidic line came to being snuffed out.
But the key concern was the coming of the Messiah, so look at verse 1 again, a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matthew is writing for a Jewish audience, and he seeks to establish, Jesus’ right to be king, the right to the kingship of Israel. It’s one of the three times in the entire gospel that Matthew uses the whole phrase Jesus Christ. And from the very beginning, Matthew is proclaiming Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of David. But he’s gonna go very much beyond this, for he was Incarnate God as well, and so the themes in the genealogy, I think are three main themes, God’s faithfulness first, God’s patience second, and God’s grace, third. God’s faithfulness first and foremost, to fulfill the promise he made to Abraham. A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Jesus was a descendant of Abraham; he was a Jew. As he said to the Samaritan woman, salvation is from the Jews.
This goes back to Genesis 12, where God called Abram, who was living at that time at Ur of the Chaldeans. And the Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household, and go to the land. I will show you, I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
That’s the promise to Abraham, that through Abraham’s descendants, all the peoples and nations and tribes and languages all over the world would be blessed through Abraham’s descendant. And so the apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:8, “The scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith.” That means give forgiveness of sins to Gentile peoples, non-Jews, by faith and announced the Gospel in advance to Abraham, saying, “All nations will be blessed through you.” The forgiveness of sins through Jesus, the Son of Abraham, and the promise to David. Psalm 132, “The Lord swore an oath to David, a sure oath that he would not revoke one of your own descendants, I will place on your throne, if your sons keep my covenant and the statutes I teach them, then their sons will sit on your throne forever and ever.”
Now, by the time of Joseph and Mary, the whole system of the Davidic kingship had fallen into disrepair. It would have been no great honor to be called a son of David in Joseph’s time, and that was exactly through the statement that God had made to David, “If your sons do not keep my law, then they will not be blessed.” And so the Gentiles came in and there was the exile to Babylon, and by the time they came back, they were under Gentile domination in Joseph’s time, it was under Roman domination. And so Joseph, in verse 20, as you look, he was called a son of David, Joseph was. It was important for Joseph to be a son of David, because he had to be in the legal kingly line in order for Jesus also to be in the legal kingly line. But Joseph for himself derived no great benefit from being a son of David, he was a simple carpenter, a tradesman, not in any wealth or power. And yet for all of that we see the faithfulness of God. God never forgot his promises to Abraham or to David.
“It was important for Joseph to be a son of David, because he had to be in the legal kingly line in order for Jesus also to be in the legal kingly line.”
We see also in the genealogy God’s patience. Look at verse 17. “Thus there were 14 generations and all from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile to Babylon, and 14 from the exile to the Christ.” Now, Matthew purposely omits certain names from old testament genealogies to get to his numerical perfection of two times seven – three times – two times seven; two times seven; two times seven, he’s got this sense of perfection and balance. But the real issue here is God’s patience. 42 generations are listed. Archeologists tell us that Abraham lived around 2000 BC. That’s 2000 years of God’s patience and faithfulness to Israel. At the right time when the time had fully come, it says in Galatians 4:4, “God sent his son, born of a woman,” after 2000 years of protection by God.
So if I can just stop and apply this to you, your life is unfolding as God wills, it’s difficult to understand the doctrine of Providence, to understand exactly God’s timetable for you, but never imagine that God doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing in your life. And that everything’s on a timetable, and the time when it fully comes everything that God intends for you will occur. God is faithful to keep his promises.
“It’s difficult to understand the doctrine of Providence, to understand exactly God’s timetable for you, but never imagine that God doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing in your life.”
We see also God’s grace in this genealogy. I was raised Roman Catholic myself. There is a strange dogma that came down, not from scripture, but from Catholic tradition, and from the ex-cathedra statement of the pope in the 19th century that the Virgin Mary was born by immaculate conception. Many Protestants misunderstand when they see the Church of the immaculate conception, they think it’s talking about the virgin birth of Jesus, but it’s not, it’s talking about Mary, that Mary was in some miraculous way protected from original sin by herself being immaculately conceived. The idea is that if Mary were a normal sinful woman then she could not give birth to the perfect sinless Savior of the world, that’s the mentality. But not so, God actually delights to show his grace.
Even in this genealogy, the genealogy is woven through with sinfulness, if you know any of these stories, you know exactly what I’m talking about. For example, sinful Jews like David himself, an adulterer and a murderer. In the case of Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite. And then Solomon was an idolater, fell into gross idolatry later in his life. Rehoboam was an arrogant boaster. Manasseh, perhaps the worst of them all, sacrificed his own son to an idol and practiced sorcery, and killed so many innocent people it’s said that he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood.
We see also his grace to gentiles. We’re gonna talk more about this next week in chapter 2, but it’s woven throughout the genealogy as well, and then interestingly to outcast women. If you look at verse 3, there is mentioned Tamar, and according to Genesis 38, after her husband died, she dressed up like a prostitute and had relations with her father-in-law Judah. And so Jesus is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah, but it came originally from that act of sexual sin. And then in verse 5, we have this woman Rahab mentioned, she was in the Book of Joshua, identified as a Canaanite prostitute. Who was saved by faith, by believing in the God of Israel, even before the walls of Jericho fell. She entered the nation of Israel, she married Salmon who gave birth to Boaz in the story of Ruth.
And then Ruth herself, in verse 5, was a godly woman, the very one who said to Naomi that she would not leave her. “Where you go, I will go and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Nothing will separate us but death,” and she was a godly woman, and her character is on display beautifully in the Book of Ruth, but she was a Moabitess. She was from an outcast race of people who traced their origination from the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughter in the cave outside Sodom and Gomorrah. The whole race was rejected by God. In Deuteronomy 23:3, it says, “No Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the 10th generation.” And then, of course, we have the case of Uriah’s wife, not mentioned by name here, Bathsheba, but Uriah is mentioned. And it was his wife that David took. And probably well definitely the worst part of David’s life. David’s partner in adultery, and after David murdered her husband, she became his wife, and they had Solomon together in Luke’s genealogy of Jesus.
Now, three of these four women were gentiles showing God’s-saving intention to the Gentile people. And then finally we see God’s mercy and grace to downtrodden nobodies after the exile of Babylon, we have a listing in verses 13-15 of ten straight men about whom we know literally nothing, absolutely nothing. They’re obscure.
So the genealogy shows three major things about God, his faithfulness to keep his promises, even after 2000 years of history, his patience in waiting for just the right moment to fulfill his promises and his grace, in using such sinful people to bring Christ into the world. Now, Joseph brought his contribution to Jesus in this, his kingly name. The legal right to be king over the Jewish people, Mary put her body to God’s services despite the scandal that would come, but Joseph put his name to God’s service thus bringing himself under suspicion of having fathered a child himself. He was willing to bear that, but it was crucial so that Jesus would legally bear the name of a descendant of David, a king of David.
“So the genealogy shows three major things about God, his faithfulness to keep his promises, even after 2000 years of history, his patience in waiting for just the right moment to fulfill his promises and his grace, in using such sinful people to bring Christ into the world. ”
Now, you may wonder why are there two genealogies? There’s one in Matthew and then there’s one also in Luke, Luke’s genealogy, for the section it covers is identical from Abraham to David, same names. But after that it follows David’s son, Nathan, not the kingly line. Matthew’s includes all the kings of Judah. But in Matthew’s lineage, we have a curse on Jehoiachim. This is in Jeremiah 22:24, 30, speaking of Jehoiachim, “Even if you were a signet ring on my right hand, I would pull you off.”, “This is what the Lord says, Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper and none will ever sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah.“
So the line in that way was cut by the curse on Jehoiachim, how could that curse be fulfilled and still have the kingly line coming down through that name? The answer is the virgin birth. Joseph was not the father of Jesus, and so the legal rights to rule came, but not the curse. And so God is very precise about these things. So fundamentally, these genealogies trace the human ancestry of Christ, and they establish him as a Jew who has the right to rule over the Jews and who is human. Fully human. And so for us, he can be our mediator, 1 Timothy 2:5- 6, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all men, the testimony given in its proper time.”
So we see the rest of the chapter then unfolds the answer to these questions in narrative form. We’ve already seen the genealogy answer the question, but now we’re gonna see the narrative. “What child is this, who laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping? And why lies he in such mean estate where ox and lamb are feeding?”
III. The Birth of Jesus Christ from Joseph’s View: (vs. 18-25)
Look at verse 18, “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.” Note the remarkable simplicity of this account. There’s no embellishment, it’s not over-stated it’s just very simple. She was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. That’s all it says. Now, we tend to zero in, and I think we’re interested in rightly, so on the human servants on Joseph and Mary, we have interest in them, that God used to bring Jesus into the world in Mary’s case and bring him up in the world, in Joseph and Mary’s case.
So who were they? Well, Mary was a godly submissive, obedient and faith-filled Jewish girl, a young, probably teenage girl and a virgin. Joseph was, it says, a righteous man, meaning he was obedient to the Mosaic Law, he was a manual laborer, some say, carpenter, could be a mason or some kind of builder, a man who is not even given a single direct spoken line. Now, I’ve said this for a few years, alright. But I was corrected this very morning as I listened to the Scripture being read, because Joseph called his name Jesus, so I guess then Joseph had one line in the Bible, and that was actually one word, “Jesus.” That’s pretty awesome. Other than that, he’s a man of not few words, but in the Bible, no words, he says literally nothing else. But he’s a godly man, and we see his quiet godliness and his manly protection of his wife and his wife’s son, the baby Jesus. And so he’s a very beautiful picture of what a husband and a father should be in his protective role. Probably he also was a teenager as well.
Now, Joseph had a significant problem right away. Joseph and Mary had been betrothed, and the wedding process came in those days in the Jewish culture, in two stages, there would be the betrothal, and then there would be the wedding, the wedding ceremony. The betrothal would be arranged by the families of the bride and groom involved the payment of a dowry, the contract was legally binding and a couple was seen to be legally married, but there would be a probationary period, probably about a year in which they did not come together as husband and wife. Notice in verse 19, that Joseph is called Mary’s husband, even though they had not come together. But the union was not consummated until a year later after the wedding ceremony, thus any immorality that would have occurred during that time would have been considered adultery, and the answer would have been divorce.
And so that’s the issue, they’re betrothed, but not yet married, they have not had their wedding ceremony yet. Before they came together, the text says she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. It’s clear that Joseph and Mary had never been sexually intimate. Mary got the news from the angel, from Luke’s gospel, Luke chapter 1:26-35. This is what the account says. “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be called great, and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.” “How will this be?” Mary asked the angel, “Since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.””
So in that angelic announcement to Mary, we have the clear fact that he is the son of David and also the son of God, and that’s the essence of the incarnation, fully human and fully divine. Now, Mary in due time told Joseph. And Joseph could not believe her, not initially, and we can well understand this, this is the only example of this in the entire history of the human race. Nothing like this had ever happened up to that point, and nothing like this has ever happened since then.
It’s completely unique. It was too much for Joseph to believe. And yet, it contradicted everything he knew about Mary’s character. It didn’t make any sense, and so he was deeply troubled by it. And so he pondered it and worked it through. And in verse 19, he came up with a solution, because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man who did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
So Joseph’s character is clear, it’s established he is a godly law-abiding Jew. The Mosaic covenant would have required death for sexual immorality. But at that point, Israel was relatively lax about aspects of the Mosaic Law. So in his day, there would have been two options, a public exposure and censure of Mary and divorce, or a private separation, which she would go off quietly and be able to raise her son in seclusion or in separation. Joseph was a righteous man, but also merciful one, he had a tender heart toward her and he loved her. He didn’t wanna see her exposed to disgrace, and so he had resolved in his mind to divorce her quietly. So he’s in agony working this through, and God and his timing allows him to come to this conclusion.
This is what he’s going to do. Look at verse 20-21, “But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife. Because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.””
Five times in these two chapters, Matthew 1 and 2, angels give messages to human beings in a dream. I don’t know how that happens, I don’t know even what that means, it causes me to scratch my head and ponder. Other people, “Sure, I can move on.”, I ponder I slow down and think, do angels have access to our brains? Do demons have access to our brains? And it seems like they do, they can insinuate thoughts, they can put things in our minds. But it doesn’t matter what I ruminate with, it’s clear that the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him what to do.
From the first, most important dream of them all in Matthew 1 and 2 is the angel telling Joseph the same thing that Gabriel had told Mary, in Luke chapter 1. The child within her had been conceived by the Holy Spirit, but he goes beyond this to say that Joseph… To tell Joseph why the baby will be born, why lies he in such mean estate. Why is he going to end up being born into humility and lowliness in the world? He will be born and will enter the world to save his people from their sins. And he’s told right away, “Fear not. Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife.” Why would fear come in? Well, there are two aspects of this, human judgment and God’s judgment. Concerning human judgment, he would come under suspicion of being the father of the child, as I mentioned, and especially if he treated her kindly and took her in, it would be almost an admission of guilt, people would just assume that the reason he’s being kind to her is that he’s responsible for her pregnancy, so he had to bear with that public censure.
Then there would be the issue of God and the Mosaic Law, and the fact that there is clearly it seems some sin had been committed. Well, the angel lifts the second right up off him, “God is at work in all of this, this is the very thing that God is doing. So do not be afraid Joseph to take Mary, she’s a godly woman, everything that’s going on here is coming from God through the Holy Spirit.” But he did not promise to protect Joseph from public ridicule or secret ridicule, or gossip or slander or a difficult life, not at all. This would turn his world upside down. He didn’t know what would happen, but he had to go down to Bethlehem to register for the census, and he didn’t know that soon after that he’d be fleeing for his life, running from Herod’s wicked troops. So this would change his world in so many ways.
Well, Joseph obeyed, in verse 24- 25, “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until after she gave birth to a son.” He did not know her. It says in the ESV meaning, have sexual relations with her. Although he had the right to do it, he refrained. So he’s willing to pay the price, secret shame and whispering. He was quietly submissive. He gave the baby the name Jesus, it wasn’t his child to name, he was under authority from heaven, and he was willing to forego marital rights with his lawful wife Mary until after Jesus was born. Now again, raised as a Catholic, I was taught the perpetual virginity of Mary, that she was always a virgin till the day of her death, but that’s just not true biblically. It’s implied here that he had no union with her, did not know her until a certain point, but even beyond that, in other accounts, we have a record of Jesus’ brothers and sisters.
I’m thinking the only way he’s getting brothers and sisters is by the normal way, they were not conceived by the Holy Ghost. And so Joseph and Mary had a normal married life, and they had other children and raised them up in the normal way. And so it is Joseph’s role to be a godly husband to his pregnant wife, and then when the child is born, a godly protector to Jesus.
IV. The Virgin Birth and the Meaning of the Names
So this brings us to the doctrine of the virgin birth. How essential is the virgin birth for our Christian faith? And I say it’s absolutely essential that we would understand and not reject the idea as though it’s somehow coming from mythology. We can trace it back to some strange pagan religions, and the idea of incarnations and maidens that are impregnated by Greek gods and all this kind of stuff, and people who do comparative religions do all this type of sullying, and they track it down to Christianity coming from myth. As a matter of fact, over 100 years ago, theological liberals were overtly attacking the concept of the virgin birth.
In the early part of the 20th century, Albert Schweitzer and Rudolf Bultmann began something called the quest for the historical Jesus. They set aside Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they wouldn’t look at those accounts as trustworthy, so they’re gonna find some other way. And they thought as modern scientific historians, they’d be able to trace down through history and be able to find the true Jesus, the historical Jesus. Bultmann specifically spoke of demythologizing, taking the myths away. The virgin birth was very much in his mind as though it were somehow a myth. In 1922, liberal Protestant preacher named Harry Emerson Fosdick, who wrote a hymn called “Guide me O thou great Jehovah”, preached a sermon entitled, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” In that he said, Christians can hold differing views on the virgin birth, some accepted as it’s written, others have a more broad-minded scientific view, and it’s okay within the Christian church to hold it. More recently, in June of 2002, Bishop Joseph Sprague and the United Methodist Church gave an address at a theological school in Denver, Colorado. He claimed that the myth of the virgin birth was not ever intended as a historical fact, but it was actually more of a literary device to help us understand the spiritual fervor of the early church. Friends, I tell you that the virgin birth is essential to the Christian faith. It’s essential because it’s taught plainly in the text, and it’s essential because it helps us understand, what child is this who laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping? That this is the incarnate Son of God.
“I tell you that the virgin birth is essential to the Christian faith. It’s essential because it’s taught plainly in the text, and it’s essential because it helps us understand, what child is this…? That this is the incarnate Son of God.”
John Piper gave us four reasons why it’s vital to believe in the virgin birth. First, it highlights the supernatural essence of Jesus’ person and mission, on one hand of Jesus’ life lies his supernatural conception and birth, and at the other end of his life lies his supernatural resurrection and ascension into Heaven to the right hand of God. And so He’s supernatural from beginning to end, he is God come to earth. Secondly, the virgin birth shows that humanity needs redeeming from the outside in, we couldn’t generate our own savior, we couldn’t save ourselves, and so God had to enter the world in order to save us.
Thirdly, the virgin birth shows God’s initiative in all of this, God has taken the initiative. Do you notice that the angel didn’t ask Mary if it would be okay? He told her what was going to happen. Now, I don’t in any way minimize that she said, “Behold the servant of the Lord,” and she was willing. But it was going to happen. The angel was telling her what God was going to do. He also knew that she would be willing. And finally, this virgin birth hints at the fully human and fully divine natures of Jesus united in the incarnation, an infinite mystery beyond anything we can ever finally understand.
None of this reasoning would mean anything if it weren’t taught in scripture, and so Matthew brings us back to a prophecy seven centuries before Jesus was born. It’s right there in the text. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means God with us. And so this brings us finally to the three names that identify Jesus, Christ is the name of prophecy, Jesus is the name of purpose, and Immanuel is the name of personal identity. Christ, the name of prophecy. For 2000 years, a prophecy had been made that the Son of Abraham would come to save the world. Jesus as the Christ, the promised one, fulfilled an earlier prophecy made in the Garden of Eden, that the seed of woman, the son of woman, would crush the serpent’s head.
And so for 2000 years, Jesus was long expected. As the hymn said, “Come thou long expected Jesus.” So Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ. The name Jesus is the name of purpose. Why was he born? Why did he enter the world? Look again at verse 21, “You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Well, the link between the word Jesus and the saving from sin isn’t so clear to us if we don’t know Hebrew. But Jesus name literally is Jehoshua or Joshua, and it means Yahweh saves or salvation is from Yahweh, or from Jehovah. Just like Jonah 2:9 says, “Salvation is from the Lord.” And so that’s what the name means, Jesus’ salvation is from the Lord. We couldn’t save ourselves. We had to have God save us and he will save us from sin. The Jewish people were waiting for a political military salvation to get the Roman boot off their neck. But the real yoke that burdened them, the real rod of their oppressor was their sins and the judgment that would come from God because of their sins. And so Jesus came to save us from our sins. It’s sin that destroys families through adultery and alcoholism and pornography and abuse. It’s sin that ruins friendships through arguments and unforgiveness and pride. It’s sin that oppresses our thoughts and hinders everything we do, slows us down in every effort we ever make to serve God. It is sin that causes people to be selfish to all the needs that surround us every day.
And so Jesus was sent into the world to save us from our sins. Do you know him? Do you know him as your personal Savior from your sins? You know what I’m saying is true, if you’re acquainted with the law of God. If you’re acquainted with your own life, you know that you are a sinner and that you have no hope of saving yourself, you cannot lift yourself up out of the muck of your own sin, you can’t scrape the defilement off of yourself, you can’t cleanse your heart, you can’t do anything about your past history, there’s nothing… What’s done is done. You can’t go back in time and undo that action… Un-say that word. It’s done. You need a Savior. Do you know him? Do you know Jesus as your personal savior? Have you trusted in him for the forgiveness of your sins? And finally, we have this name Immanuel, “They will call him Immanuel, which means God with us.”
This morning as I was preparing for this, I was thinking about the text in Philippians chapter 2[:6-8], where it says, “That Jesus, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped, but made himself nothing. Made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.” So why lies he in such mean estate? It’s gonna get even lower than that, it’s gonna get even lower than being wrapped up in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger, it’s gonna get as low as being our sin bearer, stripped and exposed and beaten and bloody and dead on the cross. That’s how low his estate will get, and he did that to stand in the way of the wrath of God and take his wrath into himself, so that we might have forgiveness of sins. And that’s what Immanuel is all about. God with us, not God against us. God with us to save us, not God against us to condemn us.
And as I was thinking about this, I was led to a Spurgeon’s sermon. Charles Spurgeon in 1854, Christmas Eve. He was 20 years old and preached his first Christmas sermon, and he preached it on Isaiah 7:14 on Immanuel. First time he ever preached a Christmas sermon, Park Street Chapel became metropolitan pulpit, and he preached on that text, “The virgin will be with child and you will call his name Immanuel, which means God with us.” So I adopted his approach and some of his language, but I kind of wrote my own version of Spurgeon’s sermon, I’m gonna close with that.
God with us, my soul ring with these words again. God with us, it is a bell struck first in heaven. Let us strike it again here on Earth. God with us, it is a single note from an eternal poem. God with us, tell it out, tell it out to everyone you know. God with us. That is his name, God with us, God by us, God alongside us, by his incarnation, for the infinite creator and ruler of the universe chose to walk upon this globe, he who made a million orbs, each more mighty and vast than this earth chose to become an inhabitant of this tiny atom. He who was from everlasting to everlasting, came to this world of time and stood upon a narrow neck of land between two unbounded seas.
God with us. He has not lost that name. Jesus had it on Earth and he has it still in heaven. He is right now, God with us. Believer, he is God with you. He is with you to protect you, you are not alone because the Savior is with you. Put me in the desert where no vegetation grows, I can still say “God with us.” Put me on the wild ocean and let my ship dance madly on the heaving waves. I will still say Immanuel, “God with us.” Put me upon the highest mountain on earth where the fierce, cold wind blows, and I see no life. I will still say, “God with us.” Even in the grave, sleeping there in corruption, I can see Jesus’ promise there, “God with us.” But to know that name fully, you must be instructed by the Holy Spirit, what’s the use in coming to church, if God is not there? Unless the Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ and applies them to our hearts, it is not God with us, it is God against us as a consuming fire. But it is God with us that I love. It is God with us that I serve, it is God with us that I yearn to see when I die.
Now ask yourselves, do you know what God with us means? Has it been God with you in your times of sorrow, in your times of pain, and trial and affliction and suffering? Has it been God with you when you open up the scriptures and search its words, has it been God with you when you kneel down in prayer? Has it been God with you in conviction of sin, when he leads you by his spirit to Sinai and you’re searched by the law of God and convicted of his sins, has it been God with you when he then leads you to the foot of the cross and you see there in that bloody sacrifice, everything you need for full forgiveness from God. Is it God with you then? Has it been God with you to come by faith with the eyes of faith to Jesus’ empty tomb and look at the stone removed, and look at the grave clothes empty, and see there your own future resurrection. Is it God with us then for you? Oh my God, teach us the full meaning, teach us the full meaning of this one word, Immanuel, God with us. Close with me in prayer.
Father, we thank you for the things that we’ve learned. We know that we will never be able to plumb the depths of God with us, of Immanuel. Thank you for what was said by the angel to Joseph concerning Jesus, that he would call him Jesus because he would save his people from their sins, and thank you for the scripture that you put in the heart of Matthew reaching back seven centuries to Isaiah’s prophecy, that the virgin will be with child and would give birth, and they would call him Immanuel, which means God with us. Help us, O Lord, to be filled with joy in this season, and help us to tell out from our souls the joy of knowing Christ our Savior, in his name, we pray. Amen.
